Agora Lecture – Ilkka Niiniluoto: Progress by Enlightenment

Professor Ilkka Niiniluoto (University of Helsinki) held the first agora lecture, entitled Progress by Enlightenment: Fact or Fiction?, at the Sibelius Museum on 16 August 2011. The lecture included an essay by Hanna Talikka, a history student from the University of Turku, and two musical performances by Se Ensemble.

Ilkka Niiniluoto is a Finnish philosopher and mathematician. He has worked as a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Helsinki since 1981. He is currently on leave from his position, serving as a Chancellor of the University of Helsinki. Niiniluoto has published widely on philosophy of science, for example on the foundations of scientific knowledge, epistemology and logic. He is the author of Critical Scientific Realism (Oxford UP 2002). He has also actively participated in the discussion on the future of Finnish university system.